International Affairs special issue on Maritime Security edited by Safeseas Directors

Safeseas are pleased to announce that co-directors Christian Bueger and Timothy Edmunds, alongside Barry J. Ryan, have edited a special volume of International Affairs centred around maritime security.

The special issues builds upon on their previous article ‘Beyond seablindness: a new agenda for maritime security studies’ that argued that developments in the maritime arena have flown beneath the radar of much mainstream international relations and security studies scholarship, and that a new agenda for maritime security studies was required. In the introduction of the special issue, ‘Maritime security: the uncharted politics of the global sea’, they reiterate their call for more scholarly attention to be paid to the maritime environment in international relations and security studies. They further argue that the contemporary maritime security agenda should be understood as an interlinked set of challenges of growing global, regional and national significance, and comprising issues of national, environmental, economic and human security. The five contributions in the special issue set out to advance this understanding, with two having a more traditional perspective, while three analyse non-traditional areas.             

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Presentation at MAST Copenhagen

As part of the maritime conference held at MAST Northern Coasts, Prof. Bueger, gave a presentation drawing on SafeSeas research on Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA). He reflected on what is difficult in implementing MDA and why we don’t see the emergence of a Baltic regional MDA structure.

New article summarises insights from Best Practice Toolkit

What are the challenges in governing maritime security? How can the capacity gap closed through capacity building projects? What guidelines can make such work more effective? These are the questions that the SafeSeas Network explored over the last years, culminating in the SafeSeas Best Practice Toolkit titled “Mastering Maritime Security”. In a new short article … Read more

Maritime Security Ideaslab in Copenhagen

As part of an ongoing collaboration between the University of Sydney and the University of Copenhagen, SafeSeas co-hosted with the Center for Global Criminology an ideaslab on maritime security on the 27th of June 2019. Titled “Insecurity, Crime and Cooperation at Sea”: New Perspectives on Maritime Security” the goal of the day was to explore different ideas from international relations, security studies, and anthropology of how our thinking changes if we initiate inquiry from the sea and not the land. The day provided an opportunity to exchange views on why and how the maritime is a site and a view point from which to explore the social and political differently.

In the background was the observation that the majority of social science disciplines have focused on the land and rather ignored the sea. What has been called “sea blindness”, however, is gradually changing. Increasingly the sea is not taken as an empty void, but understood as a rich space filled with meaning, actions and life. Emerging research challenges the land/sea dichotomy and is interested in connectivity, flows and chokepoints, piracy and other forms of maritime crime, or ports and maritime infrastructures. The six presentations of the day picked up these themes respectively.

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Welcoming our new research associate

SafeSeas is pleased to welcome our new postdoctoral research associate, Scott Edwards. Scott will be joining SafeSeas on our ongoing Transnational Organised Crime At Sea (TOCAS) project funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council, and will be based at the University of Bristol. His primary role be will in assisting in the development … Read more

Maritime Security Cooperation in Southeast Asia. Recent events in the region

From 13th to 16th of May a series of maritime security related events took place in Singapore which SafeSeas director Prof. Bueger attended. The Information Fusion Centre (IFC) – the regional Maritime Domain Awareness center operated by the Singaporean navy – celebrated its 10th anniversary, it also launched a new information sharing platform and held … Read more

Roundtable on Maritime Crime in Copenhagen

On Monday, the 27th of May, 2019 SafeSeas is organising a public roundtable titled “Uncovering Hidden Maritime Crimes – Consequences for the Shipping Industry”. The event is jointly organised by Danish Shipping, the University of Copenhagen and SafeSeas. While it is maritime piracy that catches most of the attention, there is less awareness of the … Read more

SafeSeas participates in Djibouti Code of Conduct high level meeting in Jeddah

The Djibouti Code of Conduct remains one of the major agreements in the Western Indian Ocean to strengthen regional cooperation in maritime security bringing countries from Africa and the Arabian Peninsula together. Initially only focused on piracy, the Code’s focus area was extended through the 2017 Jeddah Amendments to cover all types of maritime crimes. … Read more

SafeSeas Job Call

SafeSeas is advertising for a 2-year postdoctoral Research Assistant position to work on the topic of Transnational Organised Crime at Sea at the University of Bristol, UK. The successful candidate will work with the SafeSeas team as part of a research project funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council. You can find out … Read more